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Royalty and Ruin
In calling the attention of Judah to the sins that finally brought
the Babylonian Captivity on them, the Lord declared: “You have ...
profaned My Sabbaths.” “Therefore I have poured out My indigna-
tion on them; I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath; and
I have recompensed their deeds on their own heads.”
Ezekiel 22:8,
31
.
When Jerusalem was restored in the days of Nehemiah, he chal-
lenged the people’s Sabbathbreaking by asking them, “Did not your
fathers do thus, and did not our God bring all this disaster on us and
on this city? Yet you bring added wrath on Israel by profaning the
Sabbath.”
Nehemiah 13:18
.
How Christ Upheld the Sabbath
During His earthly ministry, Christ emphasized the binding
claims of the Sabbath. He showed reverence for the institution He
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Himself had given. In His days people had so perverted the Sabbath
that their observance of it reflected selfish human character rather
than the character of God. Christ set aside the false teaching that
had misrepresented Him. Although the rabbis followed Him with
merciless hostility, He went straight forward, keeping the Sabbath
according to the law of God.
In unmistakable language He testified of His regard for the law.
“Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets,” He
said. “I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say
to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by
no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore
breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so,
shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and
teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 5:17-19
.
The great enemy of our happiness has made the Sabbath of the
fourth commandment an object of special attack. Satan says, “I will
work at cross purposes with God. I will set aside God’s memorial,
the seventh-day Sabbath. I will show the world that the day God
sanctified has been changed. I will obliterate the memory of it. In
its place I will establish a day that does not bear the credentials
of God, a day that cannot be a sign between God and His people.